Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education

The refereed scholarly journal of the

Volume 2, No. 1
September 2003

Thomas A. Regelski, Editor

Wayne Bowman, Associate Editor
Darryl A. Coan, Publishing Editor

Electronic Article

Symposium: Bennett Reimers Philosophy of Music Education

Wayne Bowman

Wayne Bowman, 2003 All rights reserved.

The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the author. The ACT Journal and the MayDay Group
are not liable for any legal actions, which may arise involving the article's content, including but not limited
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ISSN 1545-4517
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Symposium: Bennett Reimers Philosophy of Music Education

Wayne Bowman, Associate Editor

The vision of music education as aesthetic education is one that has

encountered significant and sometimes heated criticism in recent years, much of it from
individuals involved in some way or other with the Mayday Group. Among the most
ardent advocates for this aesthetic vision as a rationale for music education, and the
writer to whom most of its adherents owe their familiarity with the idea, is Bennett
Reimer.
The first (1970) edition of Reimers book, A Philosophy of Music Education, built
upon ideas advanced by Charles Leonhard and others in the late 1960s. It offered the
music profession a challenging and affirming image of itself, one that maintained the
inherent worth and dignity of instructional endeavors in music at a time when educational
practices in general were subject to uncomfortably intense scrutiny. Music education was
justified, the profession found comfort in saying, to the extent it contributed to the
broader project of aesthetic education. This was so because the nature and value of
music education what, why, and how music educators do what they do was to be
determined by the nature and value of music; and music was, by definition, an inherently
aesthetic phenomenon. This framework and the vocabulary in which it was couched
were an apparently fortuitous match for many of the needs, real or perceived, of the
music education profession. They were embraced widely, and, by many, passionately.
Nearly two decades later (1989), a substantially revised second edition was
published. In it Reimer made a serious effort to accommodate then-emerging educational
interests in the topic of cognition, and to address some of the many contextual and
cultural changes that had come to bear upon music education practice over the years.
However, the fundamental convictions and assumptions of the first edition remained
largely unchanged: Reimers declared intent was to add muscle to the philosophy [he]
had articulated (ix) to articulate its implications more clearly and persuasively. For

Bowman, W. (2003). Symposium: Bennett Reimers philosophy of music education. Action, Criticism, and
Theory for Music Education. Vol. 2, #1 (September 2003).
http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Bowman2_1.pdf
 Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Electronic Article Page 3 of 5
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those whose misgivings about the aesthetic rationale were rooted in concerns about
substance rather than clarity, the time had come to explore alternative visions. In the
ensuing decade, new voices joined the philosophical debate: a new generation of music
education theorists began to emerge, with interests, concerns, and perspectives that
differed from Reimers sometimes strongly.
This issue of ACT features four critical essay reviews of a third, and again
substantially revised, edition of Bennett Reimers classic text.
A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision (Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall 2003; ISBN 0-13-099338-7) builds on themes many of which will be
familiar to readers of the first and second editions. As Reimer makes clear in his response
to these reviews, however, his intent in writing a third edition was not just to make
another pass at issues explored previously. He urges instead a radical
reconceptualization of the school music program, issuing a challenge that the music
education profession rethink its goals and operations in the direction of a newly
conceived comprehensiveness. It is noteworthy (and, from Reimers perspective,
disappointing) that his new, synergistic vision does not emerge with any real salience
in the reviews published here. My inclination as editor is to leave open the question of
whether this neglect is warranted or not: readers may (and, of course, will) decide for
themselves. Suffice it to say that, on balance, the scholars who accepted the task of
reviewing the book apparently found other issues more significant, more fundamental, or
more deserving of critical scrutiny.
In an effort to provide a broad range of perspectives on the issues at hand, the
reviewers in this issue were drawn from both inside and outside the music education
profession, and from both inside and outside the United States and North America.
Juergen Vogt writes from University of Hamburg, Germany. A relative newcomer
to the philosophical debates emanating from North American music education, Vogts
provocative insights are not significantly influenced either by historical involvements in
these debates or by familiarity with the institutional circumstances that comprise their
often-unarticulated backdrop. Regardless of ones stance on the particular concerns Vogt
raises, then, it may be instructive to consider how Reimers views ideas strike a thinker

Bowman, W. (2003). Symposium: Bennett Reimers philosophy of music education. Action, Criticism, and
Theory for Music Education. Vol. 2, #1 (September 2003).
http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Bowman2_1.pdf
 Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Electronic Article Page 4 of 5
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whose encounter with them is not shaped extensively by familiarity with the North
American context. Vogt frames his essay with four questions: What does Reimer mean
by philosophy? What is Reimers concept of education? How does (or should, or
might) Reimers curriculum work? And last, what might a reading of Reimers book
suggest for future efforts in the discipline of music education philosophy?
Vernon Howard, a renowned scholar from Harvard University and former
professional singer, expresses four objections to Reimers project. First, he suggests, it is
not really philosophys place to justify music education or, in Howards words, to create
inner peace. Second, he challenges Reimers claim that music does for feeling what
writing and reading do for reason on grounds this claim creates a false dichotomy, and
worse, makes critics cases for them. Third, he criticizes Reimers neglect of Schiller,
with whom the phrase aesthetic education of course originated. And fourth, he feels
Reimer neglects the special significance of imagination in music and in learning more
generally.
Pentti Mttnen, from University of Helsinkis Department of Philosophy,
advances a detailed analysis of a theme that is among the most pivotal in Reimers book:
the nature of musical meaning. Reimer is seriously mistaken, argues Mttnen, about the
extent of the gap between musical and linguistic meanings. The source of this mistake
lies, according to Mttnen, in a fundamental misconception about the mechanisms by
which language works: [F]ew contemporary thinkers would accept . . . that processes
like the ones [Reimer] describes apply to language in the first place. Mttnens second
major concern is with Reimers concept of concepts more specifically, the notion that
concepts travel from head to head by means of words. The concept of concept is,
concedes Mttnen, a tricky concept much trickier, he believes, than Reimers account
suggests or allows. Mttnens essay concludes by suggesting that the solution to the
problems he has identified lies in the pragmatist view of meaning as use.
Eleanor Stubley, from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec takes a strikingly
different approach to the task at hand. Rather than engaging in a point-by-point critique
or refutation of Reimers argument, she traces the way the various editions of this book
and its subtly shifting emphases have interacted with or formed a background to her

Bowman, W. (2003). Symposium: Bennett Reimers philosophy of music education. Action, Criticism, and
Theory for Music Education. Vol. 2, #1 (September 2003).
http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Bowman2_1.pdf
 Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education Electronic Article Page 5 of 5
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own philosophical quest. She writes, therefore, not so much aboutthe specifics of
Reimers vision as the stories [her] reading of it engendered. Stubley confesses to the
skepticism of one who has long ago forsaken the aesthetic.Yet, she suggests, Reimers
reading of the work of Antonio Damasio appears to havebegun to shift subtly the center
of gravity in his thought: away from the mind-body dualism so prominent in previous
editions; away from the Langerian notion of an isomorphic, symbolic relationship
between musical pattern and feeling; and toward the way music's patterns and forms
engage the body in lived time.These shifts in emphasis, in conjunction with Reimers
endorsements of synergism and Stubleys comfort with certain of Damasios provisions
for embodiment (if not Reimers renditions of them), imparted to her reading of this
edition a slightly different character than its predecessors. The effect, suggests Stubley,
was rather like having been givenpermission to go in search of ones own voice, to play,
to explore what might be an intriguing contrast, she implies, to the limited semantic
space allowed by the either-or propositions and philosophical distinctions that have so
often and so extensively framed Reimer's (and others?) discourse. It is all too easy for
philosophical discourse to distance us from musics living reality, observes Stubley and
to lose sight of the bodily basis of both music and language. How, she challenges us,
might our storied maps of musical experience and its meaning(s) be different were we
to acknowledge the corporeal roots of music and language alike, regarding them not as
expressions of ideas but rather as acts of positioning ourselves (both individually and
collectively) within worlds of meaning?
Finally, Professor Reimer generously shares with us his responses to these various
observations, criticisms, and queries. I will not presume, as editor, to summarize or
criticize his detailed answers to the numerous and complex issues raised by the
reviewers: instead, I encourage readers to do so for themselves, taking the time and care
such important issues clearly warrant, in hopes that this dialogue may contribute to the
advancement of both the clarity of our theorizing and the cogency of our professional
practice.

Bowman, W. (2003). Symposium: Bennett Reimers philosophy of music education. Action, Criticism, and
Theory for Music Education. Vol. 2, #1 (September 2003).
http://act.maydaygroup.org/articles/Bowman2_1.pdf